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Saturday, 22 March 2014

Design Essentials STS has caused a set back?

Hi all, my dissertation is in so I'm having a little break before starting revision for my final year exams. I have been meaning to post this for a lonnnggg time so here goes.

Some of you will remember that I got a treatment by design essentials called the Strengthening Therapy System or STS. You can read about it here. I loved it and even bought a bottle of it so I could do it at home!

Recently, I had a look over photos of my hair for 2013 and noticed my lack of progress. Here I try to work out if it's due to this system or something else.

This was my hair January 2013

Just about BSL with about 1-2 inches of damaged hair

This was my hair February 2013

2 inches of growth in 1 month: Grazing MBL

This was my hair at the end of May 2013, a 2 inch cut brought me back to where I was in February.

This is my hair in January 7 months later. In this time I should've had 3 1/2 inches of growth. Instead my hair appeared to have grown very little.

I did get another inch trimmed meaning in total between May and Jan I should've had at least three more inches, instead I have none.

In simple terms, of the six inches I should've retained in 2013 I had 3 inches cut off and 3 just disappeared!

I wouldn't see it as an issue if I had only lost one inch but to loose three just doesn't seem right!

So what has happened between May 2013 and December? Well some of you may recall, I had the DE STS twice.

Now this could be due to a few things:
1) The treatment seemed to affect my scalp, possibly resulting in shedding/ loss of growth (although it may not be due to the treatment).
2) Heat damage: The process required blow drying on a high heat twice, flat ironing with a high heat about 5 times.
3) Manipulation: During the treatment my hair was combed through with a fine tooth comb and I did feel that it ripped out some of my hair.

Or maybe a mixture of everything? Or something else? Either way I'm going to avoid DE for a while and closely look at my hair. In a few months I'll hopefully come up with a conclusion.

I tried the Design Essentials Strengthening Therapy System around the same time you did in 2013. My experience was great. I had no breakage at all. I have 3c/b and 4a hair. Since I have had my first Amino Acid treatment (Design Essential) I have tried others like Arosci Intensive Restructuring System and Basics One Step System. I would have to say that my favorite is Arosci because it gave my hair the most frizz control and anti reversion while straight. Arosci also made my curls really pop when I wore my curly hair. With both the Design Essential and Arosci my hair was super strong no breakage. With the Basics One Step system I had breakage. With The Basics One Step system you leave it in your hair until the next time you shampoo. I realized that with the Basics it is best to rinse it out like the other two amino acid treatments mentioned. Amino acid is a protein and too much protein can make the hair break. Once I did a few moisture treatments to my hair to balance all that protein my hair stopped breaking with the basics one step. But hands down in my experience the Arosci system was the best for my hair.

Hi Tracy, If you're in London, where did you go to get the Arosci treatment? I've had the Design Essentials Strengthening treatment in my hometown and I loved the results but I'm really a bit nervous about getting any texture-altering process done in London. I moved here from the US about a year ago and I have not had positive experiences. I have loads of multi-textured hair 3b/c and 4a hair and the hair stylists I've visited either want to spray olive oil on it before flat ironing(smoking point much?) or press it and watch it smoke (yikes). I've been to quite a few places from Knightsbridge to less upmarket. Can you recommend a salon that doesn't just lump multi-textured hair into "afro" or "mixed" and focuses on hair health?

Maybe your hair is sensitive to protein. (Not in a bad way just not accustom to the level of amino acid protein in this type of treatment). What that means for everyone that use this type of treatment is we have to go beyond normal and over moisturize our hair ( In my experience). I hope you don't give up on this type of treatment and find the perfect balance to make it work for you. I had to change my whole hair regimen using this type of treatment. I must say that I love the flexibility of the amino acid treatment and it will be apart of my hair regimen for a long time. Or until I find something better...LOL

Sounds to me like you are quite insecure. Perhaps if you fussed with your hair less, you might see some progress. Length of hair is determined by many factors including genetics. It might not matter what you do, or how much you obsess about your hair, it may already be hitting its predetermined length as determined by your genes.